


3 Weeks

by Holdt



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-14
Updated: 2011-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-14 23:53:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holdt/pseuds/Holdt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>9/13 - Gonna call it and just say that until further notice, this fic is dead. After 3 hospital stays in the past year and a decided lack of ability to understand my overly intricate notes and plot tabs and such, I've decided that I can't continue. If I find the inspiration to return or restart this craziness, I'll be sure to update with a note.</p><p>Thanks for the comments and kudos both on and offline, and thanks to my former betas (pinkdiamonds, manicmea & spacewolfcub) for your endless patience.</p><p>Fandom is indeed love.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. One Step at a Time

**Author's Note:**

> 9/13 - Gonna call it and just say that until further notice, this fic is dead. After 3 hospital stays in the past year and a decided lack of ability to understand my overly intricate notes and plot tabs and such, I've decided that I can't continue. If I find the inspiration to return or restart this craziness, I'll be sure to update with a note.
> 
> Thanks for the comments and kudos both on and offline, and thanks to my former betas (pinkdiamonds, manicmea & spacewolfcub) for your endless patience.
> 
> Fandom is indeed love.

The boardwalk was silent at 2am, the hordes of tourists with their sun-brellas and happy families long gone. Daniel sighed as he leaned against the worn wooden railing and thought about the changes just a few months could bring. Information overload. Desperation. He could barely bring himself to believe that it had been such a short time since he'd been "born", chuted out of a malfunctioning cloning unit in a collapsing facility. Saved by people he'd thought were his friends, only to realize as he'd stared at....well, himself, that life was not all it seemed.

He'd taken the mirror over their suggestions for a new life in their reality, removed from them, of course. Walked right up to the damn thing and used Colonel Carter's guide to choose someplace...relatively nice. Someplace where the Ascended took a more hands-on approach to peace, where the Gould were no longer a threat, and the Aschen existed as no more than a dead planet in a Alliance of planets. Most importantly, a place where there was no adult Daniel Jackson.  
Cozy, Jack had sniped, giving him one of the sidewise looks Daniel had come to realize, were the only acknowledgment Jack could or would ever give the Thing that he considered an insult to his real friend. Yeah. Real fucking cozy Jack.

I'm your friend too! He could almost taste the blood again, flooding his mouth as he'd bitten his lip to keep the words from rushing out, to keep himself from breaking down in front of them. He'd already earned their disgust by his existence - but Jack's pity? No, after all they'd been through...after all he could remember - that was more than he could bear. Neither could he bring himself to meet the eyes of his...double? That didn't quite work - not when the reality of the situation was that it was he who was the double. The sleek, dangerous looking man in black camo who'd briefly clasped his shoulder before stepping back and ignoring him completely was no double of his. Twin? Again, the word brought a surge of bitterness as Daniel rolled it around in his mind and ultimately discarded it as meaningless. What did he know about how siblings and twins felt for each other? It couldn't possibly be this uneasy mixture of cognoscenti and hatred, could it? He was doubtful.

It was strange, to feel such familiarity with a man who was in many ways, far past the point he himself had yet reached, both emotionally and physically, and to be jealous of what was essentially, himself. It was odd, to know exactly how to use the weapons that never really stopped being pointed at him, and never test the knowledge. It was heart-breaking, to know the feel of Abydonian soil beneath his feet, to have scent memory of the blood and desperation of his teammates, of Jack's famous barbeque, of Chulakan ale; to have aural memory of their laughter and the solidity of knowing they were always at his back. To hear the quiet serenity of his Washington home and the cultured click of chess pieces as Jack endlessly tested move after move, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake.  
To have any of this - ALL of this, echoing through his head, and know that these things were not his. Had never really been his to begin with.  
Would never be his again.

The malfunctioning of the cloning unit that had spewed him out on a gush of embryonic fluid and dead nanites had been both a curse and a faint blessing; Although Daniel (he still thought of himself as Daniel, yes, even on the bad days) couldn't remember what he'd been told was the past 3 years or so, just before the Stargate Program had gone public (and there was another flare of resentment/jealousy), he'd also found he could remember...everything before that. Every last fucking detail.

Consequently, he found that he also had more bitterness than he could ever remember feeling before. Many things had been taken from Daniel down the years but his confidence in who he was, his bedrock belief in his rightness of self, was badly shaken. He sighed, remembering how Jack had reacted with disgust and horror at his clone, and wondered how the Original Daniel...(Daniel 1? Daniel A? Daniel Prime?) had coped with his own sudden appearance. The SGC, and SG1 in particular, had surely failed Jon, and now they'd failed him too. It was the why of it that ripped him from sleep and kept him awake, the why that he couldn't stop prodding like a sore tooth. Why? Wasn't he just as much Daniel as....Daniel?

The answer at simplest, was yes. He was both Daniel and not-Daniel, from the moment he took in his first breath. Both the same man and apparently vastly different enough a man that the people whom he'd thought were his family couldn't stand the sight of him. Fine. He'd done without before. He'd been alone before. Life...went on, no matter how drab. No matter how terribly hard it was to learn to live in a shell again, after he'd given so much of himself for so long... He shook his head, impatient with himself.  
Goddamn semantics.  
They got to him every time. So maybe it hadn't actually been him. So what? He'd been there, dammit - he felt, he knew, he remembered, he was real!

Other things had changed as well.  
Daniel could remember his deep appreciation for the female sex...oh hell - lets call a spade a spade. Daniel had loved women. Loved them and wanted them and fucked them in good measure. He was good looking - he knew it; And though he'd never used his looks to coerce or fool a woman into his bed, he'd never been nearly as naive as most of his acquaintances assumed him to be.  
The shy act was a good deterrent, and admittedly, he'd often hammed it up to the point where he'd damned near made himself look neutered at times, but some people just didn't know how to take a rejection. That was okay - Daniel had little issue with making it easier for them to dismiss him as "cute but clueless" and "obviously un-trainable", a skill he'd honed...a skill Daniel A had honed during his under-aged undergrad years.  
Daniel liked sex - Damn, but he'd loved sex. The visceral grip of limbs and heat after a day of self-enforced asceticism, losing himself in getting as dirtied, as buried in his partner of choice as he could... he remembered that hunger too, and was fairly certain it hadn't changed. He had standards, and they were somewhat taxing, true - but once they were successfully hurdled, Daniel was a maniac for a fuck and (if various lovers were to be believed) couldn't get enough of it.

The thing that puzzled him now, the thing that seemed to have changed, was that he didn't seem to have the slightest inclination towards women now. He frowned at the water as he considered his plight. Women. He appreciated them, yes. He admired their beauty, always. He enjoyed being favored, flirted with and...and he wanted nothing to do with them intimately. Lately, his dreams had been shifting in an altogether more robust, smooth-tanned, silver-haired direction. A soft laugh escaped his lips, nothing of humor in it.

Jack.

Yeah right. He had about as much chance of running into this reality's version of Jack as he had of wiping all these jumbled memories from his mind. He had a theory, which he might have shared, had there been anyone around to listen, that the unfinished engram of the original Daniel Jackson might have helped him to understand these urges, these feelings that there was somewhere else, somewhere important that he should be. Something he should be doing. Someone he should be doing it with, whatever "it" might be. The sad truth was, Daniel had no idea what to do with himself, and he needed to get a handle on it before he went quietly insane.

He had what the original had always wanted...didn't he? He was free to do as he wished, without sanction. He had a head full of knowledge and no censure from any professional communities. No one here knew Nicholas Ballard, no one here remembered Daniel as the man who opened the Stargate. He never had opened the Stargate here, nor any Stargate for that matter - and as far as he could tell, neither the Egyptian nor the Antarctica 'gate had been discovered here.

Yet.

Daniel frowned deeper. There was something about that thought, something that niggled and worried at the back of his mind, and his eyes opened wide as he finally fixed on the source of disturbance.

There was no Stargate...

There was no SGC....

Which meant...

OhGod.  
Jack.

"It doesn't mean anything. It means NOTHING." The words burst out of him, trembling on air.  
Belatedly, he realized that from afar, he probably looked very much like his Uncle Nick, raving at the sea.

He murmured it again, defiant eyes raised to the stars now.  
"It means NOTHING."

The thoughts sent a deep chill through him and he turned away from the hypnotic turn of the tide and made his way, silent and alone, to his cabin.


	2. Echo

He hadn’t had much time to really sit and think, since what he’d started terming ‘The Incident’, for interested parties. Food and shelter had been a primary concern, and the procurement of funds had been foremost on his mind when he’d stepped, broken-souled and defiant, into a new universe. In spite of the MALP’s projected urban sprawl (a precaution that Jack had insisted on, with conflicted tone and hard eyes), Daniel had found himself in a lightless cavern. He’d stood for several minutes, letting his eyes become accustomed and fighting the panicked urge to jump back into the Mirror. _  
_

_Don’t leave me here!_   
_  
  
_

Soon he was able to discern shapes in the darkness, proving thankfully that the place wasn’t lightless at all. A soft, indistinct glow gave just enough form to uncertainty that he was able to make his way from the place. Daniel didn’t look back – he knew the Mirror would already be dark, and a deeper sense told him that even if by some miracle, he’d managed to dial home, the ‘address’ for his new universe would be locked out. 

_Go team!_ He’d been so lost, so… fury was a pale word; insufficient to explain, to express the roiling depths of bile that had burned and clenched in his belly. They had _left him behind._ Pushed him to the side, ejected him. Rejected him. He’d stared at Jack while the readings were verified, pleading silently. Knew it was futile when Jack refused to respond. Knew it was hopeless when Dr. Jackson gave Jack a look of his own and Jack’s eyes frosted over in response. He remembered that feeling - the sure knowledge that if he thought it warranted, if he gave the word, Jack would let his demons out to play and lay waste to the enemy. He remembered that he’d never once abused that knowledge.

Dr. Jackson hadn’t seemed to have the same qualms. It had taken Daniel some time to realize; something had happened in the past 3 years, something that made the night-clad Dr. Jackson consider him a threat, odd as that was to wrap his head around. It was hard to admit, harder to stomach, but Daniel was glad not to have the memory, the experience of whatever had turned him into such a cold bastard.

He didn’t understand the reactions of the original Daniel in the least – if it were him, he’d have argued for study, for an exchange of communication, for…mercy. He hadn’t missed the sharp flare of anger the first and only time he’d looked, appalled, into his own eyes; anger that had burned into him even as those same hands were helping him to stand, clasping his shoulder. Faking concern. Even as Dr. Jackson had stepped away and effectively turned his back on Daniel, knowing pride would keep him from asking for the help Daniel so dearly needed.

No, he hadn’t understood then. Certain things became clearer, with time.

 _“You hungry?” The familiar voice was an intrusion, a sharp reminder of exactly what he’d been trying to forget in the past hour of reading. Daniel felt the dark gaze move across his face and his hands tightened, arms wrapped tightly around his chest. After his initial shock, he’d prayed this was all some horrible nightmare that would end soon. He knew better._

 _By the time his eyes lifted, Jack was staring off above his head. So that easily, he’d been relegated to a non-person. Persona non-grata, his mind supplied helpfully. Thanks, Jack. This is exactly what I needed from you._

 _He couldn’t help the edge in his own tone. “Why?” What the fuck do you care? He didn’t have to say it – Jack’s face colored slightly and the corner of his mouth twitched. Message received, loud and clear._

 _The brightly-colored tray rattled as Jack slid it across the smooth metal of the interrogation table._

 _“Here. Eat.” Jack was brusque, but there was that hesitancy again. Curiosity demanded he investigate, but any moment Jack would walk out, leaving him to stew until once again he was fighting his own mind, reciting Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah and any scrap of memory he could hold onto to keep himself from screaming at the injustice of it all and wasn’t it just like him to fuck up so spectacularly and why the fuck couldn’t he ever seem to keep his goddamned hands to himself and-_

 _His leg had begun to jitter madly and his fingertips were turning white where he gripped the heavy cloth of the uniform jacket he’d been given. Daniel stilled himself with conscious effort and took a deep cleansing if not calming breath. His voice was as steady as he could have wished. “What are you going to do with me?”_

 _Jack’s head reared back and his eyes were wary as he looked at Daniel. “What? What do you mean? We’re going to find out where you belong, and …you know…. Send you there.”_

 _Daniel’s jaw tightened.  
_

 _I belong here, you ass!  
_

 _“It doesn’t have to be this way, Jack. I can help – I’m sure that I could help, do a job, you could have twice the translations in half the time, if you’ll just let me-“_

 _Don’t throw me away, Jack - just tell me what I can do - anything!_

 _Jack’s eyes closed and his hand cut a sharp path through the air. “All right, just STOP it! You and I both know that isn’t happening, Danny, so just shut the hell up and EAT!” His voice had risen slightly, foreboding, but this was a Jack that Daniel knew, at least._

 _He leaned forward, ignoring the tray, into Jack’s space, eyes on his and willing him to listen._

 _“Jack…”_

 _His own voice lowered slightly, an old and much-favored trick of making the older man lean in to listen, making him be calm enough to hear. It was hard-wired in Jack, that tone, trained into him by years of association. Daniel knew it, slipped it past Jack’s defenses and saw that it worked as it had every other time he’d needed it to._

 _He called me by name, he called me Danny, he knows I’m me-_

 _Jack was listening. Intense brown eyes looking into Daniel’s eyes and Daniel could tell that Jack was… what? Waiting to hear what the good thing, the right thing to do was. Jack was actually going to let him speak! Daniel’s triumph was short lived._

 _“Jack. Pl-”_

 _“Double your Daniel, double your fun, Jack?” The coldly un-amused sound of his own voice rode over his impassioned plea. “And here I thought you’d moved on. Still…as younger models go, it’d be a hell of a trade-in.” Dr. Jackson’s eyes never left Jack. “He’s kind of dumb, but I guess you know that already, huh, Jack.” Okay, there was no mistaking that cool contemptuous tone for anything but scorn. That was snake-baiting at its finest, and it hit with stunning results._

 _Jack straightened, spine snapping rigid. Something Daniel had never realized was there until it was gone died in Jack’s eyes. “I think I’ve heard about enough bullshit for today. You know, Dr. Jackson, it’d probably be better if you … kept your distance from our guest. “_

 _Daniel’s mouth was dry. He knew that he was staring, but what the fuck? What in God’s name had happened? What was happening right now, for that matter?_

 _Sure, he and Jack had their little spats. They had “differences of professional opinion” often. They even had knock-down, drag-out, take-no-prisoners raving arguments with each other at least once or twice a year. The kind of arguments where things got said in the heat of the moment that they both knew didn’t matter when it was done, because they were passionate, but they were honest. The kind of arguments where sometimes people even got tackled, hit in the mouth if they weren’t careful, but this… this was nothing he knew. They could be brutal, but there was always the unspoken I’m not going anywhere and as much as they pushed one another, they could always work their way back from the edge._

 _This though, this was deeply, deadly personal. Daniel sensed the edge was long past on whatever business was between the two men in front of him, and suddenly he wasn’t sure if he knew either of them at all. How sad was that – that he didn’t even know himself. He didn’t want to see this. He couldn’t see this. Couldn’t watch himself being used to cut and slash at a man his heart said was still his best friend. Couldn’t bear to watch even a reflection of himself reduced to…whatever this was._

 _“I’m sorry – I’m sorry, look – I’ll eat, Jack. Okay?” He wasn’t anywhere near hungry, but he’d damn well try. Anything, to not have to listen to the two of them rip each other down._

 _A close-mouthed, “Mm. See?” was the extent of Dr. Jackson’s response, before he stepped out of the doorway and continued down the hall._

 _Daniel sat in silence for a moment, eyes wide, and then shot a quick worried glance at Jack. “I’m…sorry.” He repeated, at a loss for words. He hunched deeper into the uniform jacket, eyes lowered beneath his lashes, trying to give the man some privacy._

 _Jack’s mouth had been tight and he’d looked ready to kill, but that didn’t stop Daniel from seeing the hurt in his eyes. For the first time Daniel could remember since Argos, Jack had looked_ old _._

 _“You really don’t belong here, you know…” he’d said almost gently. It was the look in his eyes, the painfully apologetic smile that might as well have been a wince, which told Daniel that Jack was as lost as he was._

That, _more than anything else, scared the hell out of Daniel._

Daniel emerged from the rocky cliff-side into a cloudless cool fall evening. Earth’s moon shone brightly above, it’s full light the beacon he’d followed from the cave. A wave of relief shuddered through him, leaving him lightheaded in passing. _  
_

_Earth._

So much had gone wrong in such a short time – he’d been unable to shake the specter of dread, certain that he’d miscalculated horribly. The lights of a city burned unwavering, below. They looked to be ten, maybe even as little as five miles away.

The climb down was easy enough, and gave him something to concentrate on rather than his larger predicament. Three times he slipped and berated himself silently while sweat streamed, fingers dug grimly into the loose clay of the cliff side. He realized how completely he’d incorporated military philosophy, and felt naked, knowing that if he fell, no one would catch him. No one would yell his name or grab hold to pull him back to his feet. No one was watching his six. No one knew he even existed.

The thought was enough – buried coping mechanisms began to sift in and life became a series of discrete, logically forethought movements. Foot...hand…a slide towards a better handhold, a breath, then repetition. Not until his feet were firmly on solid ground did Daniel risk looking anywhere other than at what was right in front of his face. His hand slid absently over his jacket pocket, verified the slight bulge in the canvas.

 _Heads up, Dannyboy!_

Daniel’s eyes closed briefly. His throat burned as he swallowed hard. An echo impression flashed across his inner eye of _blue, shiny, familiar_. Before the tight clasp of Daniel’s hand had confirmed and swallowed what his mind had known was there, Jack’s back had already been turned. He supposed it was the limit of Jack’s kindness, some sort of fucked-up O’Neill keepsake. He’d stuffed it into his pocket, registered the quick moving swath of darkness to his left and Sam’s alarmed expression... He’d touched the mirror without a second thought. That would have been interesting to have to explain: Noted Hero Commits Murder-One on Self, Awaits trial in Prison - Story at eleven. The bastard.

 _He would have done it._ Would they have protected Dr. Jackson? It was a possibility Daniel was more than happy not having answered.

With a shiver, he pushed the memory away. That wasn’t important right now. Unbidden, the litany of team drills began to run. _What do I have, what do I need?_ What did he have? Well, that was an easy one. Daniel forced himself to think as dispassionately as possible. Research. Study. Materials?

Gear: one slightly over-used nondescript canvas jacket, blue. One black t-shirt. One pair of BDU pants, also black. One black cap. One pair of prescription glasses – indispensible. Two pairs of AF laces. Two sturdy yet stylish AF issue boots. One pair of prescription shades, probably lifted from the good Dr. Jackhole. One battered quasar-blue yo-yo, with string.

His head began to pound. _Fucking yo-yo…_

No! The list – the list was _important._ The list was _life and death_. What else? Surely he had something else? Daniel’s shoulders began to hunch and he was abruptly, stupidly grateful for his years of unwitting indoctrination. Of course there was more. For God’s sake, he was _wearing_ it!

Right then.

Moving on.

One knapsack that had seen better days, holding a three day supply of MREs, four litres of clean water, a handful of water purification tablets, one small bag of mystery jerky, one thermal blanket, one handheld crank-operated flashlight radio with a backup solar panel, three twelve-hour lightsticks and four thirty-minute high intensity lightsticks, a first aid kit, gloves, a dust mask, a folding stove, ten solid-fuel tablets, one box of waterproof matches and the all-popular puke-green poncho. Yup, all the creature comforts. Only the absolute best for the reality-deported.

What did he need?

Okay, maybe _not_ so easy after all. First things first. Left foot right foot.

He could hear motors. Motors meant cars, and cars…meant a road. Roads meant civilization. Yes, roads were where you wanted to be, alright. Roads, in fact, were where it was _at_.

Daniel took a cautious sniff. He took stock of himself. Filthy, clothes streaked with mud, mountain clay and the odd spot of blood from numerous small scrapes – there was no way he’d get a ride into the city in his state, and it was too dark to risk pretending to have been a victim of a crime. Not to mention the fact that with this much black on, he’d be lucky if he didn’t get hit before he managed to flag down a ride. No, until he knew more about this Earth, he needed to fly low.

 _Fly low…_ Daniel relaxed his jaw with a conscious effort.

 _Under the radar then._ A decade of dubious association with flyboys had riddled his vocabulary. It was another thing he'd need to work on.

Shaking his head, Daniel adjusted his straps, settled his load and began to walk towards the sound of distant engines, wondering just how long it would take to forget everything and everyone he’d ever known.


End file.
